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What a difference 30 years makes...

We celebrate the anniversary of the Atari 2600 through the medium of cruel comparisons

Words: Ben Richardson, GamesRadar UK

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Oct 2, 2007

This month marks the 30th anniversary of Xbox 360's great-grandfather, PS3's distant ancestor and Wii's, er, third cousin once removed. That's right, the Atari 2600! Don't tell us you didn't know...

Being the first real videogame console, 2600 was also the home of the first recognisable videogames genres. So, we thought, what better way to celebrate the old boy's big 3-0 by seeing how its brave gaming heroes compare to the audiovisual treats we take for granted today. Join us, for a scathing walk down memory lane...

Right, first up is Asteroids. Close relative of Spacewar! - perhaps the first game ever created - Asteroids used to be the chief reason we never had any pocket money. We're that old.

Next to modern-day space blast twitchfest Geometry Wars, though, Asteroids looks... er, what's the inoffensive term for 'bag of balls'? Certainly, we owe Asteroids a debt of gratitute, for helping to kickstart a gaming revolution. But on this evidence, we sure don't owe it a replay...

4 Comments

Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First

Chiropteran - 9 months 13 days ago

I played Asteroids ... and Night Driver ...

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JimmySmitz - 9 months 13 days ago

you dont have enough ad space.. 9 pages based on 2 paragraph articles...tsk tsk tsk.

you should make it so we have to click through a new wave of ads every syllable. i mean afterall, you need to strike for 50 ads per word in order to really get that bang for your buck.

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majorsuave - 9 months 12 days ago

Hehe, the Activision logo didn`t change at all since Pitfall

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kurkosdr - 9 months 11 days ago

"Being the first real videogame console..." WRONG!!!

--> It was the Fairchild Channel F that was the first real videogame console.

Mind you, the Channel F wasn't just another pong console, like Odyssey. It had everything in concept the Atari 2600 had, such cartridges, CPU, RAM and so on. It wasn't better than the 2600, but it was the first real videogame console, that's for sure...

BONUS LIST:
-First Mass Produced Car: Oldsmobile Curved Dash (not the Ford Model T)
-First computer with GUI: Xerox STAR (not something from Apple)
-First videogame ever: Nim (not tennis for two)

Isn't it just plain weird how many things popular culture got totally wrong?

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